"I assume she'd have said if she did."

"Great. Okay. Alex, do you want to go see what the autopilot's been doing -"

"On it." 

"Are the patients stable enough for maneuvers?"

"We're doing a kidney transplant in a couple hours, we'll have to see how well she takes it. They're probably not going to get more stable, after that, since they're being eaten by the alien parasite."

"Is it a good idea to bother transplanting their kidneys and so on, when they're not gonna make it?"

Frustrated shrug in Nayoki's direction.

Well, this could be going a lot worse.

:We are still trying to - find a way to explain to the Proto how to infect someone in a nonfatal way - or leave their body, ideally, but I am not very hopeful on that front: 

A pause. :- Oh, you would not know. Important information about the Proto. It uploads people's brains, when it infects them; Leareth is fairly sure it can run copies of them, then, but not well currently because it is still small and resource-limited. Also, it was built by - some alien civilization we know nothing about - to make wormholes. It is very determined to do this and will not really be dissuaded from eating so it can accomplish this, but it is quite cooperative about eating livestock and then rocks rather than people. And it is fairly willing to learn other tasks - for example, it learned to imitate our Gate-magic, which is what I used to board your ship, but at much larger scale so that it could bring us from Velgarth to this star system: 

All of this is, again, something she badly wishes she could have run by Leareth before divulging, but Leareth isn't available and it's obviously relevant and Leareth, she's pretty sure, would want her to make an alliance with these people. Somehow. 

"So the plan is - negotiate with the blue goo. Did - you name it 'proto' -"

:- I think the Healer who initially found Julie named it that, because 'protomolecule' was too long? And, yes. ...Leareth wants it. It would be capable of solving many, many problems that we have back on our world, and it is - not hostile, just very alien and hard to communicate with. It has cooperated with our requests whenever it understood them. And it understands more, the larger and stronger it is. Leareth decided to let it eat our Moon, so that it would be smart enough and strong enough to Gate us here: 

She lets out her breath a little. :But obviously your local situation was more urgent, so we came here. Also worth mentioning that Leareth currently runs a large and well-resourced organization in Velgarth. He could bring - well, if it were necessary or helpful, and the Proto can obtain enough resources here for another Gate, he could bring an army and several hundred people with powers similar to what I have. But the first priority is understanding the local situation and making allies here: 

"I....don't think we want an army from another planet here, that sounds like it would probably cause there to be more war rather than less war and there is already way too many people wanting to have a war. - where are we at, Alex -"

"Nowhere near Ceres, is that where we're headed? Is their ship accompanying us, it seems to have gone off on its own while we weren't at the controls -"

"Mars is gonna hit them up - the area's crawling with Martian patrols right now," he adds to Nayoki.

:...Well, if they try then there are still some people with powers - one of them is a Farseer who can Gate from Farsight - should I warn them that any ships bothering them are likely to be hostile? Also I had an idea to have them rejoin us. Several ideas but the first one is: I think we could use the Proto as a relay and have your pilot instruct our people on how to maneuver the shuttle? The Proto figured out Mindspeech when it was talking to Leareth. My longer-term idea is that the Proto could Gate directly over - or possibly Gate all of us to Ceres, if Leareth wakes up and can figure out how to explain that request clearly enough, I was unable to - anyway it needs to eat more resources before it can do that again: 

"If Mars finds and boards the shuttle they'll have the blue goo."

"I can just ...call them...and tell them to follow us..."

:I think Mars will find it unexpectedly difficult to capture the shuttle if our people are warned! Since they will presumably not be expecting magic, and Leareth's people are very well trained. You can try to call them but they are not very familiar with operating the shuttle? Julie explained some of the very basics but we were mostly not doing anything complicated, before. That was why I thought using the Proto as a Mindspeech relay might help, it seems to have instantaneous communication with all of the parts of itself in the same star system: 

" - what, faster than light?"

:- I am not sure, Leareth said it was instantaneous but - light has a maximum speed? Fascinating!: 

The locals glance at each other.

"Okay why don't you have the, uh, proto, tell your crew on their shuttle how to answer a hail from the Roci, and then Alex can talk them through how to follow us, and then we'll head out of here - are there people looking for your drive signature?"

:- What? I am not sure. Julie might know: 

The ship has zero shielding of any kind against Mindspeech, so checking this is easy. :Julie?: 

She startles awake. Mmmm?

:I am sorry. The crew want to know if you think anyone might be tracking your ship's 'drive signature'?: 

Oh, shit. Yeah. "s why I was planning to go to Eros on thrusters, before - stuff happened. Possibly we want to just get everyone over to this ship, lose mine?